After World War I, special people returned to their hometowns from the front. When the war began, they were still little boys, but duty forced them to defend their homeland. “The Lost Generation" is what they were called. What, however, is the cause of this loss? This concept is used today, when we are talking about writers who worked during the break between the First and Second World Wars, which became a test for the whole of humanity and almost all of them unsettled.
The expression "lost generation" once came from the lips of Gertrude Stein. Later, the incident during which this happened was described in one of Hemingway’s books (“A Holiday That Is Always With You”). He and other writers of the lost generation raise in their works the problem of young people who returned from the war and did not make their home, their relatives. Questions about how to live on, how to remain human, how to learn to enjoy life again - that is what is paramount in this literary movement. Let's talk about it in more detail.
Authors and literature of the lost generation
- Francis Scott Fitzgerald. His first work “On This Side of Paradise” and the most famous - “The Great Gatsby” - are the brightest examples of literature in which the lost generation plays the main role. He also tried to convince people that in pursuit of the "American dream" it is very difficult to save a human face. So whether it is necessary to pursue her? Isn’t it better to try to become the person you were before the war? Fitzgerald is the founder of this literary movement.
- Erich Maria Remarque. German novelist who advocated the ideas of pacifism. The work "Three Comrades" immediately became a cult. Along with the book “On the Western Front Without Change,” it tells us about people whose youth was “buried” in the military trenches. Remarque compares the war with a huge funnel that draws on the best mental qualities of a person.
- Ernest Hemingway. Goodbye Weapons is a book not only about war, but also about love. The story of Lieutenant Frederico and nurse Catherine led readers to overestimate a lot. War is the most cruel thing in the world, and the lost generation should strive to find itself by all means.
- Richard Aldington. He wrote a book about the fate of his generation and called it The Death of a Hero. The novel is a regret about how many people who have not had time to see a peaceful life are already disappointed in it. The war is to blame.
- Henri Barbus. His book Fire is recognized as the very first in a series of anti-war novels. Published in the form of notes, a diary, which is kept by a person who knows the whole truth about the baseness of war. Barbus calls her work to destroy other people. There is not even a shadow of romance here - solid realism in the description of battle scenes and emotional experiences of the heroes.
Literature on the lost generation is not only the similarity of topics. It is also a recognizable style. At first glance, this is an impartial account of what is happening - be it wartime or post-war time. However, if you read carefully, you can see a very deep lyrical subtext, and the severity of mental throwing. For many authors, it turned out to be difficult to break out of this thematic framework: it is too difficult to forget the horrors of war.